1. Field
The invention relates to thin film deposition on a substrate. More particularly, the present invention relates to plasma-enhanced deposition processes and related structures.
2. Description of the Related Art
In manufacturing semiconductor devices, various processes have been developed to provide a high quality thin film on a substrate. Several methods have been used to form a thin film employing surface reactions on a semiconductor substrate. The methods include vacuum evaporation deposition, Molecular Beam Epitaxy (MBE), different variants of Chemical Vapor Deposition (CVD) (including low-pressure and organometallic CVD and plasma-enhanced CVD), and Atomic Layer Epitaxy (ALE). ALE has been studied extensively for semiconductor deposition and electroluminescent display applications, and has been more recently referred to as Atomic Layer Deposition (ALD) for the deposition of a variety of materials.
Deposition processes continue to be developed as new needs and applications arise. For example, high k dielectric layers are increasingly prevalent in certain electronic devices or components, such as advanced Metal-Insulator-Metal (MIM) capacitors, silicon and organic thin film transistors, DRAMs, non-volatile memories, and organic light emitting diodes (OLEDs). Such electronic devices or components may also include layers and substrates sensitive to deposition conditions for forming high k dielectric layers. Thus, there is an on-going need to develop processes to form thin film with desired properties for various applications.